Appeal No. 96-0357
Application No. 08/200,850
cell contact (e.g., cell contact 106) to form a “single”
contact, and not “a plurality of flexible conductive balls” as
claimed. Thus, the 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of claims 1
and 5 is reversed.
We agree with the examiner (Answer, page 4) that
“Tsukagoshi et al. disclose a compressible conductive ball
composition (3) including a flexible elastomer material (8)
such as rubber coated with a highly conductive metallic
material (9) such as gold.” With this teaching in mind, the
examiner is of the opinion (Answer, page 4) that “it would
have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in this art at
the time the invention was made to use a conductive, flexible
ball coated with a highly conductive material in Thomas et al.
to obtain a pressure deformable ball free from dispersion of
connection resistance and applicable to connection of minute
areas of a semiconductor chip such as taught by Tsukagoshi et
al.” Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the
examiner is correct, we are still left with the fact that the
single contact 106 in Thomas, albeit now flexible in
accordance with the teachings of Tsukagoshi, is still not a
“single” contact made of a “plurality of flexible conductive
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